OMG! Texting Drivers All Over The Road

COMMENTARY

October 12, 2012|By WILLIAM MAJOR | COMMENTARY, The Hartford Courant

In an effort to hold off the inevitable decline of middle age, I have taken to the streets.

Not content to simply be a spectator as multitudes of bicyclists and runners renounce fossil fuels for the their more respectable solar-0powered bodies, I was recently inspired to lace up my shoes. At 46 years old, I am a runner.

And this, I fear, is my epitaph.

So I direct this inscription to the person who is texting while driving, the person who has decided to take advantage of the privilege of sitting behind the wheel of a 4,000-pound vehicle to tap weighty and important messages, such as: "What's for dinner?" "Meet me at the mall." "OMG! I almost hit a runner!"

I know that you won't kill me on purpose, but that hardly matters. It would almost make more sense if you were pointing a gun at my head and demanding my wallet. At least then you would have a motive. As it is, however, my pending death is simply the result of your selfish, lethal ignorance, with no more logic than a dog chasing its tail.

What is worse, you were warned. But we warn our kids not to touch a hot stove and they often do. That you violate the laws of Connecticut is one thing, but you also defile the basic laws of social propriety. In this, it is clear that you were raised poorly; your parents, it seems, failed to teach you that you are not the center of the universe. You have some growing up to do.

It is strange, too, this religious obeisance you pay to your inaptly named smart phones. It is odd how easily these devices have made worshipful slaves of you as you motor blindly toward you don't know what, running from yourselves without the least modicum of self-awareness. I hope you find what you are looking for — before the accident.

Other than the obvious fact of my untimely death, the real problem here is that, to paraphrase the late writer David Foster Wallace, you haven't really decided anything for yourself; you didn't even decide that this is the God for you. It decided, and you act like you have no choice. But Wallace knew that you are on your "default" setting.

You are afraid to say no, to turn off your phone, to pay attention. You live your life in fear of missing something, when in reality that is all you are doing: missing something. You have missed me many times, often just barely. I sometimes feel sorry for you and wonder how it must feel to be lost. I wonder whether these thoughts have ever crossed your mind. I wonder what life will be like for you after you kill me.

I understand your affection for your phone. I've been there. I know the allure of a puny attachment to self, of feeling like the world was made especially for me. It's difficult to wake up out of this trance, to achieve some kind of self-awareness, to realize that other people have a purchase on the world as important as one's own. We aren't used to such work. It's much easier to look into the screen of our accessories than into the screen of our lives.

I'm trying to teach my two daughters this lesson. This is very difficult work, as we are more and more charmed by our little techno-silos where our most pressing needs appear fulfilled, immediately, without much effort or thought. I want my daughters to understand that they aren't their accessories, that they can escape if they want, that they can take control. I want them to learn to make the right decisions when I am gone.

This process is going to be very difficult, though, after I'm dead. There's no app for that. Until then I run and bike under a cloud of doom.

William Major is a professor of English at the University of Hartford.